Nigeria’s Federal Government openly traded off its dignity in what amounted to a betrayal of conscience penultimate Tuesday night (December 30, 2014). This occurred at the United Nations Security Council meeting where voting on a proposed resolution to stop the perennial Israeli occupation of West Bank area of Palestine took place.
The proposed resolution was to be an historic anticlimax of the 66-year-old Israeli/Palestinian conflict with a view to paving way for a two-nation solution. If passed, the resolution would have ventilated a peaceful atmosphere for the Middle East and by implication, the entire world.
In the YES or No voting of the 15 member-nations of the Security Council, nine votes were required as the simple majority to determine the liberation of the Palestinian people from the political and economic siege of Israel.
Voting pattern
Out of those 15 member-nations, eight voted in favour of the liberation while two voted for continuous Israeli siege on Palestine. The eight nations that voted for the latter’s liberation were Argentina, Chad, Chile, China, France, Jordan, Luxembourg and Russia. Those that voted against liberation were the United States and Australia.
The five remaining countries that opted for abstention were Lithuania, South Korea, Rwanda, Britain and Nigeria. Incidentally, two years prior to this stage of determining the fate of the Palestinians (2012), Nigeria’s permanent representative at the United Nations, Prof Joy Ogwu, had glowingly supported the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and statehood and reiterated Nigeria’s recognition of the State of Palestine. That was one year after Nigeria confirmed her diplomatic relation with Palestine on October 31, 2011. And definitely acting on the instruction of her home government, Professor Ogwu at that time voted in favour of the admission of Palestine into UNESCO as a full member-state, despite a fierce opposition from the US and Israel.
During her speech at the UN General Assembly in 2012, Prof Ogwu underscored the right of the Palestinians to live in freedom thus: “It was quite fitting that the international community had given Palestine a non-member observer state status in the United Nations. This was not only timely but also right and just.” She then went ahead to pledge Nigeria’s commitment to working towards Palestine’s admission into the United Nations as a full member state.
Dramatic u-turn
But dramatically, when the matter came up on December 30 2014, Nigeria suddenly made a u-turn that held the entire diplomatic world nonplussed. Rather than living by her words as a dignified nation, she shamelessly cheapened out and threw her conscience to the winds apparently in return for a clandestine agenda yet to be fathomed.
Thus, to the amazement and perhaps disappointment of most members of the Security Council, including those that voted to block the Palestinian right to a home, Nigerian government betrayed that glory as its negative decision became pivotal to UN’s rejection of the long awaited resolution that would have brought peace to the Middle East.
The implication of this is that with the blocking of peace in the Middle East in which Nigeria played a principal role, the rest of the world, including Nigeria cannot sleep with both eyes closed for now.
This is because, the Middle East conflict especially between Israel and Palestine has been the major determinant of global peace or otherwise since 1967 when Israel, aided by the imperialist West, further occupied the Arab lands which she has since consistently refused to relinquish thereafter despite all efforts.
Before the voting, the anxiety created by the impending abstention of certain member-states had put a global diplomatic focus on Nigeria being an African champion of liberation movements in the past. It will be recalled that Nigeria’s role in championing the cause of liberation especially for African countries before now was legendary.
The tenacity of such role (during the cold war years) as a vital part of Nigeria’s foreign policy that aided the independence of countries like South Africa, Angola, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Algeria and others had once pitched the country against the imperialistic tendencies of some Western countries.
How Nigeria broke
relation with Israel
It was against such imperialistic tendencies that Nigeria’s Federal Government under General Yakubu Gowon broke diplomatic relations with Israel for 19 years from 1973 to 1992 when the Military President Ibrahim Babangida restored that relation. In those years, religion was not at all in consideration as the issue of liberation was seen purely as a humanitarian affair which deserved human feeling rather than sheer political contention or religious sentiment.
If religion had been at the front burner of Nigeria’s foreign policy, General Yakubu Gowon, a Christian, would not have taken Nigeria into the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) in observer status in 1969 and General Ibrahim Babangida, a Muslim, would not have restored Nigeria’s diplomatic relation with Israel in 1992 after 19 years of break (since 1973).
Thus, through her consistency in human face foreign policy, Nigeria had earned tremendous prestige in the comity of nations and this had earned her the appellation of ‘Giant of Africa’ which she still enjoys today as a special privilege.
Now, by deviating from that highly prestigious foreign policy and by pitching its tent with the imperialist countries the government seems to have sacrificed conscience on the platter of unwarranted and irrelevant religious sentiment which is a reflection of the situation at home in Nigeria under the current regime.
This may be linked to fortuitous diplomatic visit of Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman to Nigeria among other African countries in June 2014 in preparation for the unfortunate betrayal for which the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked and praised President Goodluck Jonathan for a job well done.
Nevertheless, Nigerians are urged to overlook the embarrassing diplomatic goof and wait for another chance bearing in mind that no diplomatic policy is permanently static. God bless our country!
Clarification on
published fables
In a front page lead story (without a by-line) published in Sunday Tribune of December 28, 2014 and entitled ‘Division Within Core North Widens’, the Ibadan-based newspaper claimed that “the elite and opinion leaders among the Hausa-Fulani stock are split down the line about who to support between the two major contenders (President Goodluck Jonathan and General Muhammadu Buhari).
The newspaper went further to state that “the elites who lined up behind General Buhari included the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa‘ad Abubakar, who is leading some northern Emirs; 11 Arewa turks, led by former minister Mallam Nasir El-Rufai; four core northern Governors led by Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso of Kano State and a loose coalition of clerics said to be linked to various street groups across the northern region ……..”
Fabricated news story
Under the same news headline, Sunday Tribune came up with a sub-heading entitled ‘South-West Muslim Council Backs GEJ’, and quoted one Mallam Hakeem Adelani who it called the Secretary-General of the ‘Muslim Council’ as saying that since ‘Yoruba Muslims were not goats and rams’ they would rather vote for Jonathan than Buhari’.
The quoted fake secretary was also reported to have said that a mosque-to- mosque campaign would soon commence in the region to sensitise the Muslim Ummah towards the clandestine political agenda of some evil politicians who want to use the name of Islam for their evil machinations.
The concern of the Muslim Ummah of Southwest Nigeria (MUSWEN) here is not about Nigeria’s political murky water in which some dirty elements in the society are swimming, but about the smearing tendency of some dirty minds in the region who think they can drag Islam and some highly placed Nigerian Muslims into their murky water. In view of the above, therefore, the following clarifications are necessary:
The Role of MUSWEN
The Muslim Ummah of Southwest Nigeria (MUSWEN) is the main umbrella of all the Muslim organisations in the Southwest and it does not have the so-called ‘Muslim Council’ (of no particular state) on its membership list.
MUSWEN is the only Muslim body authorised to speak for the entire Muslims in the Southwest through its Executive Secretary, Prof D.O.S. Noibi or its Media Consultant, Alhaji Femi Abbas.
Any other person or persons claiming to be speaking on behalf of the Southwest Muslims without the authorisation of the above mentioned duo can only be a fraudster using a Muslim name to tarnish the image of Islam in the region.
The fictitious name called Hakeem Adelani said to be the Secretary-General of the Council is not known to MUSWEN or recognised by any of its member organisations in the region.
MUSWEN is neither a political body affiliated to any political figure or party in the country nor is it involved directly or indirectly in Nigerian partisan politics.
As a credible religious body which fervently believes in freedom of expression and association, MUSWEN has never and will not be involved in partisan politics let alone influence the electorate’s voting rights along religious line.
The frivolous statement published by Sunday Tribune in the name of the Southwest Muslims is therefore a mere fabrication by enemies of Islam aimed at subjecting the name of the highly revered religious body to ridicule.
Consequently, MUSWEN calls particularly on all Muslims in the Southwest and the country in general to ignore the insensitive and irresponsible statement reported in the cited Sunday Tribune and credited to a fictitious Mallam Hakeem Adelani who may be non-existent in reality.
Meanwhile, MUSWEN hereby calls on the Federal Government once again to urgently address all forms of insecurity in the land with particular attention to the socio-economic sources of unrest by taking bold and practical steps towards stamping out corruption and indiscipline through the leadership’s personal examples and thereby strengthen God’s consciousness in all Nigerians.
Finally, MUSWEN admonishes all Nigerian politicians to refrain from heating up the polity through incendiary utterances and public actions in their campaigns towards the elections that will begin in February 2015 and remember that there can be a Nigeria to be called their country only if there is peace. God save Nigeria!
The ranting of a dubious cleric
“A man who does not wear dignity as a dress cannot proclaim dignity by demand through sheer bravado” By an Arab poet.
Self-respect is like a glass house. Anybody who values it will surely not throw out a stone from it. And when a pig decorated with a valuable ornament takes it to a refuse place it must not be a surprise. Refuse bin is the natural habitat of the pig.
Nigerian Muslims should not be bothered by a recently published ranting of a so-called Nigerian cleric leader of the Christian faith whose antecedent is very well known. In the two parts publication in a Nigerian national newspaper last Friday and last Monday, the self-glorified irritant turned himself into a Mr. know all and quoted the Qur’an copiously out of context giving it a drunkard’s interpretation to incite Nigerian Christians against Nigerian Muslims.
The megalomaniac wanted Nigerians to believe that the only way of ‘curbing insurgency’ in the country is to either wipe out the Qur’an from existence or edit it to suit his own satanic thinking.
In his devilish search for a solution to insurgency, after a long, unwinding rigmarole typical of an evident ignoramus, he concluded that unless the Qur’an is edited to suit his own parochial way of amassing devilish wealth in a typical capitalist manner, the world would not know peace. To him, Qur’an (which has been in existence for over 1400 years) is the main cause of the five year old insurgency in Nigeria.
Such an evil conclusion by a criminally avaricious agent of devil cannot surprise any sane person. Some recent exposures about his clandestine activities have confirmed his satanic tendencies.
Rather than compounding a fundamental national problem like insurgency with a satanic solution this self-appointed public tutor should have explained to Nigerians his own role in the recent illegal currency trafficking that caused a face-off between Nigeria and South African.
The total amount of money said to be involved in that devilish deal was $15 million. This is not the right time for any diversionary tutoring. But since people who are not related to relevance often recourse to irrelevances as a proof of their existence, the diversionary tactics can be understood even as the commercial cleric needs to be pitied. However, for the benefit of relevant information and knowledge about the divine Book called the Qur’an, a full reaction to that provocative, inflammatory outburst will be published in this column in a foreseeable future, in sha’Allah.
